Several methods are known to match buyers with sellers of various types of property. On a basic level, an individual buyer might identify a piece of property that is being offered for sale through advertisement or word of mouth, and then directly contact the seller or the seller's agent. Once contact is made, negotiations take place which may result in a consummated sales transaction.
Particularly for large scale transactions, the process usually is more complicated. Instead of searching item by item to find a desired piece of property, a buyer may wish to narrow the universe of potential property according to certain criteria such as price, size or location. This permits the buyer to avoid spending time looking at property or listings which are of only tangential interest or no interest at all, and instead to focus on the universe of property which most suits the buyer's needs.
From the seller's perspective, it is desirable to narrow contacts with potential buyers to those more likely to result in a consummated transaction. Perhaps most importantly, it is in the seller's interest to evaluate the financial position of prospective buyers to minimize financial risk and to avoid added time and expense.
Frequently, the seller desires to preserve anonymity throughout part or all of the sales process. Further, it is often desired by the seller to obtain a list of potential buyers who can each be evaluated in terms of the likelihood that they will purchase the seller's property before they are contacted.
In recent times, advances in data storage and retrieval methods and communications methods have permitted more sophisticated approaches to performing at least the initial step of matching buyers and sellers. For example, many real estate agents now utilize a network of terminals linked to a host computer which provides a database of listed properties. The agent can formulate a list of properties in which the buyer may be interested based on criteria provided by the buyer, such as price, location, size or type. The buyer can then view the property and, if interested, can contact the seller, or more usually, the seller's agent in order to initiate negotiations.
Advances in communications and multimedia applications have been applied to improve the quality of the information conveyed to the potential buyer about property being offered for sale. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,680 describes a system and method in which textual and image information are transmitted between a host and several remote display terminals. In this way, images of the property being offered can be conveyed in real time to the buyer.
A related prior art method of linking potential buyers with sellers involves "home shopping," typically using television and voice communication. For example, for several years advertisers have displayed individual items through television broadcasts to permit buyers to purchase such items over the telephone. More recently, interactive systems have been proposed through which the prospective buyer can order merchandise advertised via data transmission over telephone lines, thereby eliminating the need to speak with a salesperson. The system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,191,410 is illustrative of such a prior art approach.
Even more recently, the global network commonly referred to as the "Internet" has been used to advertise particular pieces of property to potential buyers. Such uses are primarily limited to situations in which a seller advertises a particular piece of property by posting a listing on an "electronic bulletin board" which may be read by potential buyers. The buyers can then contact the seller or the seller's agent by telephone or by electronic mail.
While some databases created by agents or brokers are available, access is usually limited. Typically, many systems require the payment of a fee in order to gain authority to utilize the database. Many others available on the Internet are limited in terms of the features and services provided.
While greatly improving the accessibility of buyers to information concerning property being offered for sale, these prior art methods and systems suffer from many disadvantages and drawbacks. For example, most of the prior art approaches described above are limited in geographic scope. Thus, the time and expense incurred by a potential buyer interested in purchasing property in a distant area is dramatically increased. Further, where networks are accessible to a larger geographic area, they typically require a subscriber fee to gain access, thereby resulting in added expense to the buyer, and thus providing a disincentive to at least those buyers not located close to the seller.
Moreover, many of the systems according to the prior art fail to perform more than an item-by-item listing of pieces of property being offered for sale. A buyer must therefore expend a great deal of time and effort to sort through each item to find one which is of potential interest. Even where the prior art provides a sorting function, such as with the real estate databases, they generally are not directly available to the buyer, but instead must be accessed through an agent. Again, this adds to the buyer's costs, and provides a disincentive to purchase, thus adversely impacting the seller.
Furthermore, the prior art systems described above often fail to adequately screen potential buyers. As mentioned above, financial screening permits the seller to increase the chances of a successful consummated sale. While a buyer may seek financial evaluation before initiating a search, it often occurs that a buyer seeks to look at property being offered without performing such an evaluation. Further, while financial screening can be performed by the seller or the seller's agent, it usually takes place after contact with the buyer has been made. Thus, both parties may waste time making contact in a situation where the chances of a consummated sale are unlikely.